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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

By Captain Arthur L. Conger 




The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

Separate No. 172 

From the Proceedings of the Society for 1916 



■amHoiraiiHH 



President Lincoln as War Statesman 



By Captain Arthur L. Conger 




The State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

Separate No. 172 

From the Proceedings of the Society for 1916 






President Lincoln as War Statesman 



By Captian Arthur Latham Conger, U. S. A. 

The farther we recede from the era of our great civil strife, the more 
colossal stands out the figure of Abraham Lincoln upon the dim per- 
spective. ^ 

All authorities agree with Swinton that an incredible incoherence, 
largely the work of intrigues, cabals, and political imbecility of the 
vote-catching charlatans, prevailed in the management of the war.^ 

His [Lincoln's] "ignorance of statesmanship directing arms" was very 
great; and his errors were very numerous, ^ 

There exists a divergence of expressed views regarding 
President Lincoln as war statesman that must be indeed 
baffling to him who has neither the time nor the equip- 
ment to form an independent judgment. Mr. Lincoln 
is not without his admirers and defenders, but the chief 
among these, his war-time secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, 
possess no great competence in military matters and 
besides, their avowed policy of being "Lincoln men all 
through,"^ has perhaps weakened the force of their argu- 
ments. Among the books commonly classified as mili- 
tary histories we see a large number, dwindling as we 
approach the present, reflecting the view of Lincoln's 
war-time political opponents, that he is a vacillating 

1 James Schouler, History of America under the Constitution (New York, 
1894-1913), VI, 1. 

2 T. M. Maguire, The Campaign in Virginia (London, 1908), 23. 

^ G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (London, 
1900), n, 334. 
* William Roscoe Thayer, Life of John Haij (Boston, 1915), II, 33. 

[106] 

0, ot ij. 

NOV OA fn-jr 




CAPTAIX AHTIiri^. 1.. COXCILH. V. S. A 



President Lincoln as War Statesman 

imbecile, at least in military matters; another group, 
smaller but growing in size, represent Lincoln as having 
had a positive and willful influence upon the course of the 
war, but a misguided and pernicious one, owing to his 
combined ignorance and conceit. 

The views of these professedly military histories, 
mingled in varying proportions, we find swallowed whole 
by the writers of many general histories who repeat, 
parrot-like, jibes against Lincoln's imbecile vacillation 
or bull-headed blundering, as the case may be, without 
attempting to understand or to analyze the points under 
discussion. Amid all this harsh condemnation the singu- 
lar fact stands out that the common people, in whose 
good sense and judgment Lincoln so firmly trusted, have 
returned the compliment; they have not only refused to 
accept the quips of the captious critics but, on the con- 
trary, as James Schouler so aptly puts it, see "more 
colossal" as time recedes, the figure of Abraham Lincoln, 
towering above his contemporaries. 

In venturing to approach Ihe subject of Lincoln as 
war statesman, it is not with any claim to present any 
freshly discovered evidence, nor yet to pit the writer's 
dicta against the conclusions of others, but rather to point 
out the scientific method which must be employed in 
dealing with the subject if we are to obtain a truthful 
and a fruitful product. That method is to resolve the 
subject, for the purposes of investigation, not in the first 
instance chronologically into a series of events, but into 
its real constituent elements. We need to examine 
separately Lincoln's strategical conceptions, his tactical 
decisions, his orders, his combining of land and sea oper- 
ations, his decisions in regard to the size of armies in 
their relation to public opinion, finance, and acts of Con- 
gress, his dealing with the problem of military organiza- 

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lion, his choice of military leaders, his handling of public 
opinion and of foreign affairs in their relation to the 
military operations, and lastly the tout ensemble of all 
these which we may denote by the convenient expression 
"conduct of war." Further, on all these questions we 
must not stop at the mere decisions, we need also to 
inquire into the manner of their execution, the framing 
of the orders and their conveyance, and into the personal 
relationships both in their outward and in their inner or 
psychological effects. 

Very many have approached the subject not only with 
a false method but with a lack of proper equipment: 
without a working knowledge of the principles of historical 
criticism; or without the necessary technical and pro- 
fessional knowledge of military affairs; or without the 
required breadth of view. We need to remember con- 
stantly, in dealing with the evidence, that Lincoln was, 
besides President, the leader of a political party, that as 
such he was, both personally and in his official capacity, 
the target for all sorts of abuse and vituperation, and that 
all his acts were called into question and misinterpreted 
with all the cleverness his political opponents could 
muster. We need to recall always, in judging the wisdom 
of a measure, that its success or failure is not, as is often 
assumed, the correct test of its soundness or appropriate- 
ness. Wise measures usually win the game in the long 
run, yet in the particular instance the bungling measure 
may turn the trick. Our decision on the matter must 
depend rather on whether the measure in question was 
correct in view of the situation as it appeared at that 
time, with all its uncertainties and difTiculties, not on 
whether it proved correct in the light of after events, nor 
yet in view of the wider grasp of the situation which the 
historian easily obtains. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

In dealing with the Civil War we need also to bear in 
mind that it was not, like so many wars, one over some 
relatively trivial matter, a dispute over a boundary or a 
province, or to satisfy some grievance, but one in which 
absolute conquest was sought on the one side, while on 
the other the people were willing to endure every sacrifice so 
long as by so doing there was any possible chance of 
winning their independence. Very few of the wars of 
history are of that character and I know of no other war 
of the sort in which the decision was gained with so few 
odds on the winning side.^ 

Needless to say, in this presentation of the subject I 
can attempt nothing fmal or conclusive; it is only possi- 
ble within the scope of this paper to point the way and 
state some conclusions gathered in the course of many 
years' research in Civil War campaigns. 

The first problem of war statesmanship is: Who began 
the Civil War? with its corollaries: Were the moment 
and the means well chosen? It is notable that the situa- 
tion on Lincoln's inauguration differed in no material way 
from that of forty days later when the torch was applied 
to the magazine of public opinion. The Federal forts, 
arsenals, offices, and funds had already been seized by 
the Confederate states, the Union flag had before been 
fired upon when the Star of the West attempted to supply 
Fort Sumter. A Confederate government had been 
organized and a Confederate president was exercising the 
functions of his office. 

The popular views held, that the South provoked the 

1 We easily recall hoM' we gained the decision over the British in the Revolu- 
tionary War, which was of this class, against infinitely greater odds. Napoleon 
in all his European wars did not attempt the overthrow of any main govern- 
ment, except that of Sjiain, and in that instance he was ingloriously beaten, 
though the odds in his favor were vastly greater, in a military way, than were 
those of the Union government against the Confederate. 

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war, or that the two severed parts of the country naturally 
or inevitably drifted into war, are, I believe, a mistake. 
Nearly every great statesman has made war when he 
chose, where he chose, and in a manner to cast the onus 
on the other side. Bismarck, with his publication of 
the Ems dispatch, did not with greater firmness or pre- 
cision choose the moment and the means to bring about 
the fateful war of 1870, than did Lincoln in his message of 
April 6 to Governor Pickens, notifying him "to expect 
an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter."^ True 
it is that the South struck the first blow, but Lincoln 
spoke the word that provoked the blow% quietly, with 
dignity, in an irreproachable manner and, it seems to me, 
with full knowledge and intent of the consequences. 

Let us inquire if it could have been done sooner. Forty 
days before, Mr. Lincoln had been the leader of the "Black 
Republican" party and a minority president-elect. Dur- 
ing these forty days he had become, in the popular con- 
ception and with vastly added prestige, the President 
of the United States. He had organized his cabinet, 
secured the reins of government, gained a knowledge of 
the powers of his office and how to employ them, and, 
what was equally important, a knowledge of its limita- 
tions. He had gained further a mental grasp of the 
situation, in all its varied complexity, without which the 
firm and decisive measures following the firing upon 
Sumter would not have been possible. 

On the other hand we must ask if the situation ad- 
mitted of further temporizing. When we realize that the 
Sumter garrison would have been compelled, through 
starvation, to evacuate or surrender when it did in any 
event, and recall the apathy of the northern states towards 

1 J. G. Nicolay and John Hay (eds.), Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln 
(New York, 1894), II, 32. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

secession and the violent opposition on the part of the 
border states to the employment of any coercive military 
measures which prevailed at the time, we cannot fail 
to recognize how fatal to the Union cause would have 
been the degradation of sulTering in silence the loss of 
Sumter and continuing further the dawdling policy which 
had been inherited from Buchanan. Certainly the mo- 
ment was well chosen, and as we study the records of the 
cabinet discussions of the time we sec that it was pecu- 
liarly of President Lincoln's own choosing.' 

How well tlio means were adapted to the purpose, 
not only of initiating the waging of the war to restore 
the Union, but of unifying at the start public sentiment 
in the northern states and of driving back into the north- 
ern fold all the border states it was possible to save, and 
with what added effect the proclamation calling out the 
militia was made to appear in the same issue of the papers 
which conveyed to the people the tidings of the fall of 
Sumter, needs no comment here.- 

The war once begun, the task devolved upon the Pres- 
ident as constitutional commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy of choosing a strategic plan of action. Mr. 
Lincoln knew nothing of military art or of the science 
of strategy, but he had the advantage of approaching the 
subject with a trained, logical, and unbiassed mind. 
Under the circumstances he had to seek advice and it 
was perhaps as fortunate for the cause of the Union that 
the best advice was at hand as it was that he possessed 
the capacity to understand and follow it. None the less 
must we admire foremost his ability to distinguish be- 

i See Diary of Gideon Wells (Boston, 1911); R. B. Warden, Account of private 
life etc. of S. P. Chase (Cincinnati, 1874); J. G. Nicoiay and John Hay, Abraham 
Lincoln: a history (New York, 1890), IV; Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, II. 

2 See J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress (Norwich, Conn., 1884), I, 273, 
296. 

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tween the true and the myriad will-o-the-wisp strategical 
proposals presented to him, and his firm adherence to the 
strategic aims then chosen, consistently and logically 
to the end, in spite of the fact that his cabinet, many of 
his military advisers, the press. Congress, and the people, 
were carried away by all sorts of fatuous proposals. 

The advice I refer to is that which became termed in 
derision "Scott's Anaconda." Space does not permit a 
discussion of Scott as a general, nor of how he came to 
formulate his plan; for the present it must suffice to 
point out briefly its merits and the fallacy of the storm of 
protests which doomed it temporarily to public scorn. 
Scott proposed:^ 

1. "A complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf 
ports." 

2. An initial "powerful movement [to be undertaken 
about November 10] down the Mississippi to the ocean, 
* * * to clear out and keep open this great line of com- 
munication." 

3. Thus "to envelop the insurgent states and bring 
them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other 
plan." 

This plan was not in accord with the pedantic Jominian 
conceptions of the military literature of that era. These 
conceptions were stated in their redudio ad absurdum 
form, as applied to the Civil War, by a man named 
Schalk. According to Schalk,^ and a good many others, 
it was the part of the contesting authorities to form one 
or two "main armies" which were to maneuver and 
fight a few decisive battles after which the two govern- 
ments should agree on terms of peace, after the manner 
of Napoleon and Francis Joseph in 1805 and 1809. The 

1 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, IV, 301. 

2 E. Schalk, Campaigns of 1862 and 1863 (Phila., 1863). 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

difTerence between an ordinary war and a war of abso- 
lute conquest was beyond the conception of Schalk and 
of those who argued in the same vein. 

Scott's plan, we must remember, was not a complete 
plan of action but a policy. Changing conditions, such 
as the shift of the Confederate capital to Richmond and 
the advance of Confederate armies to Manassas and Win- 
chester, soon demanded seemingly radical changes; yet, 
as a policy, Lincoln adopted it and adhered to it through- 
out the war. This we see not only from his memoranda 
and utterances' bul by his acts. Had he been duped by 
the "single efl'ort" fallacy we should have seen the en- 
deavor to create a huge army. As it was the blockade, 
to be made complete, had to have the eflorts of the navy 
complemented by the capture of the harbor forts by 
military land forces. This was done, and done at the 
expense of the "main armies" and main campaigns. 
Had the "on to Richmond" cry been seriously adopted 
by Mr. Lincoln the obvious course would have been to 
sacrifice the coastal and Mississippi operations to ensure 
the success of the Virginia campaign. As it was, his first 
strong and decisive elTorls were directed, in accordance 
with the Anaconda, to the reopening of the Mississippi. ^ 

1 A long list of references might be given in support of this statement but it 
is unnecessary since the student can easily find them himself in the Complete 
Works, and War of the Rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union 
and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1880-1901), Ser. I-IV, 1-130. A few are 
mentioned by way of illustration. Memorandum of July 23, 1861, Complete 
Works, II, 68 (note: the passive policy in the East and the stress on the move- 
ments from Cairo down the Mississippi and from Cincinnati on East Tennessee). 
Memorandum of [October 1?] 1861, ibid., 83. Letter to commander of Western 
Department. Oct. 24, 1861, ibid., 86. Letter to Stanton, Jan. 24, 1862, ibid., 
118. General War Order No. 1, ibid., 119. Letter Fox to Dupont, Official Rec- 
ords, XX, 436. Letter Stanton to Hallcck, June 9, 1862, id., X, 671. Letter 
Lincoln to Seward, June 28, 1862, id., CXXIII, 179. 

2 In the matter of dates it is interesting to note that Scott proposed to begin 
the Mississippi campaign Nov. 10, 1861; the first blow in that theater was 
actually struck three days earlier by Grant at Belmont. 

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That the Confederate leadership did not soon enough 
grasp the decisive strategic factors in the war, but adopted 
the inapplicable Jominian theory, made Mr. Lincoln's 
accomplishment of his strategic aims the easier but it in 
no wise detracts from his clear-sighted conduct. 

The merit of the plan was that it promised to break 
down and to destroy the military resistance of the South 
with the least possible friction: that is, loss of life and 
property and resultant bitterness. The South was not, 
economically, a self-sustaining community — in the matter 
of food, clothing, shoes, metal products, and manu- 
factures — nor did it possess in its railroads, without the 
use of the coastal and river routes, the necessary arteries 
of trade; nor could it hope, without the ability to market 
abroad its great staple products, cotton and tobacco, 
to make good its deficiencies or to sustain its financial 
credit for the needs of the war. 

If we consider what would have been the results of the 
Schalk application of the Jominian theory we must picture 
to ourselves a war lasting many years longer, of doubtful 
issue, demanding hundreds of thousands more men on 
the side of the North, and resulting in a ravaged and 
wasted country, frightful atrocities, reprisals, and un- 
ending bitterness. Even with the twenty to one odds 
which the British had over the Boers, and which we had 
over the Filipinos, this method, with its unavoidable burn- 
ings and destruction, with its concentration camps and their 
hardships and consequent wastage of life, was only able af- 
ter several years of exceedingly painful work to bring peace, 
though the problem in both cases was far easier than the 
one the North would have had in the Civil War, had the 
subjugation of the South been undertaken on that basis. 

Considered from the standpoint of the North the Scott 
plan was no less appropriate. The aims and economic 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

needs of the people of the central and northwestern 
states cut off as they were by the Confederacy's blocking 
of their main trade route, the Mississippi, could not be 
ignored. Mad the troops of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
and even Ohio and Indiana, or the bulk of them, been 
thrown into the eastern theater, western enthusiasm for 
the war, and its moral and material support of it, would 
soon have languished. 

As Nicolay and Hay so aptly say:^ "Every war is 
begun, dominated, and ended by political considerations; 
without a nation, without a government, without money 
or credit, without popular enthusiasm which furnishes 
volunteers, or public support which endures conscription, 
there could be no army and no war — neither beginning 
nor end of methodical hostilities. War and politics, 
campaign and statecraft, are Siamese twins, inseparable 
and interdependent; to talk of military operations with- 
out the direction and interference of an Administration 
is as absurd as to plan a campaign without recruits, pay, 
or rations." 

The same principle applied to the East, the aims, 
aspirations and needs of whose people had to be weighed 
as carefully as those of the western group. Had the mass 
of the troops drawn from the East been sent West to pro- 
secute the Mississippi campaign, the support of the 
eastern group of states would likewise have faltered.^ 
It was essential, as Mr. Lincoln evidently perceived, to 

' Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, IV, 359. 

^ It is interesting to compare the percentages of volunteer troops raised 
(before the resort to conscription) in the various localities. The western and 
Mississippi states put much larger percentages of their military population into 
the field than did New York and Pennsylvania, while the latter sent a larger 
percentage than did New England. We see in this the results of the relatively 
greater efforts made in the W'est — the consequence of following the Anaconda 
plan — and the more immediately visible accomplishment of the political and 
military aims of the people of that section. 

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carry on the war in a manner to gratify the aims, so 
far as possible, of the people of every section, while not 
losing sight of the main issue and the central strategic 
thought. That the western efforts succeeded so easily 
while the Virginia campaign dragged so slowly must be 
ascribed in part to the fact that the military efforts of 
the Confederacy were more nearly— thus favoring the 
North's Mississippi and coastal operations — concentrated 
in the Virginia theater but mainly to the fact that the 
military talent of the day proved unequal to the task of 
handling and fighting the large armies which were brought 
face to face in the Virginia theater. This, rather than 
the accident of leadership, is the real explanation of the 
resulting deadlock between the Army of the Potomac 
and the Army of Northern Virginia.^ 

The further working out of the strategic plan was 
probably Mr. Lincoln's own; though he may have been 
aided by Scott who appears to have been, in the larger 
matters, his only trusted military adviser until Grant 
came to Washington in 1864. It consisted, first, in the 
recognition of the necessity of gaining the upper hand 
in the eastern theater, especially in northern Virginia, 
and second, in the determination to seize and hold eastern 
Tennessee for the purpose of cutting "a great artery of 
the enemy's communication,"^ and rescuing a loyal 
people from the tyranny of the rebel government. Both 
purposes were entirely in harmony with the Anaconda 

1 These armies, from 1862 on, never fought a decisive battle. Fair Oaks, 
Gaines Mill, Frazier's Farm, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Antietam, Fred- 
ericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Har- 
bor, Petersburg: in no other modern war is there any such list of half-hearted 
and drawn battles. In every case but one the attacker was either beaten or 
stood off, and if one side or the other retreated or drew away it was owing to 
the commander's having lost his nerve, or to some other reason, but not because 
his was a decisively beaten army. 

2 Lincoln to Buell, Jan. 6, 1862, Officiai Records, VH, 927. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

idea. The first was a political necessity; the second 
constituted an objective easy of attainment — as was seen 
when Burnside occupied eastern Tennessee and sustained 
himself there in 1863 — and most fruitful of results, since 
its loss virtually put an end to the Confederacy's ability 
to make war on an extensive scale in the West.^ Further, 
the occupation of eastern Tennessee paved the way for 
a second penetration, or the closing of the coils of the 
Anaconda to the line Atlanta-Savannah, while the 
head of the serpent delivered its thrust to wrench away 
the last remaining coal and iron facilities at the disposal 
of the Confederacy about Richmond. 

The strategic plan was simple enough, but the execu- 
tion of it, in the absence of a trained army and trained 
generals and staff officers, and with all the popular clamor 
for action and speed to be expected in a country under 
a democratic form of government, was a more difficult and 
complex matter-. Mr. Lincoln had often seemingly to 
give way to the popular wish but close examination 
shows that he always kept clearly in mind relative stra- 
tegic values and adhered to his main purposes with a 

1 The present war, more nearly than any other, presents a situation parallel 
to that of the Civil War. On the side of the Allies we have seen the attempt 
throughout, but with ever increasing effectiveness, to blockade and cut off 
economically the Central Powers from the rest of the world. The attempt to 
open the Dardanelles, to give Russia an economic outlet and cut Turkey in 
twain, corresponds to the attempt to open the Mississippi and thereby restore 
the river trade route to the northwest. The affairs in the Balkans find their 
counterpart in the operations in Kentucky and Tennessee. But on the German 
side we find no such concentration of elTort on the western front to the detriment 
of its operations in other theaters as the Confederates made in Virginia. Ger- 
many's initial seizure of the coal and iron country in Belguim and northern 
France would have found its parallel had the South, in 1861, seized and held 
the mining country of western Virginia and western Pennsylvania. Thus we see 
on Germany's side a thorough appreciation of, and preparations to meet, the 
pressure resulting from the adoption of the Anaconda policy by the Allies, and 
on the Allies' side a slower awakening to its possibilities: the German General 
Staff has not for nothing numbered among its members the keenest students of 
our Civil War campaigns. 

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firmness suggestive rather of a tyrant than of a president. 
So great was the outcry against even the name of the 
Anaconda that it soon dropped out of sight. The popular 
objection to it was that it was too slow, the public mind 
being unable to conceive that the safest and surest plan 
was bound to be also in the end the swiftest plan. After 
Bull Run, and especially after the varied excitements 
afforded by the campaigns of 1862, no one recalled it, 
except as a curious vagary of an old man supposed to be 
in his dotage, or realized that it had furnished Mr. Lin- 
coln his guiding strategic thought in carrying on the war. 
The first essential step was to secure the two strategic 
points vital for the execution of the plan, Cairo and Wash- 
ington: Cairo as the necessary springboard for the Mis- 
sissippi movement, Washington because without its posses- 
sion the Union cause would become hopeless. The se- 
curing of both places received the prompt and earnest 
attention of the Union government. Soon after Sumter 
men and guns were rushed to Cairo^ and even before 

1 Message of Governor Yates, American Annual Cyclopedia, 1861 (New York, 
1865), 368; Galloway to Walker, Bruce to Davis, Tate to Walker, Official Rec- 
ords, CX, 54, 66, 67. 

Perhaps the most fatal misstep of the Confederacy, since it was never given 
any real chance to secure Washington (though Lincoln was fearful for its safety 
and had to be reassured on this point by Scott), was its failure to take Cairo 
and thus to secure the free navigation of the Mississippi, lower Ohio, Tennessee, 
and Cumberland rivers. This act would have led to the dismemberment of the 
Union Northwest as effectually as its neglect led to the dismemberment of the 
western states of the Confederacy. It would undoubtedly have secured Ken- 
tucky and Missouri to the side of the South and given a real interior line of com- 
munications which would have made the military problem of the Confederate 
commander in the West a comparatively simple one. As it was he had to defend 
and to attempt to block three separate river lines, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, 
and the Mississippi, each with separate means. The northern commander, on 
the contrary, was able by using the river system to concentrate and throw the 
whole weight of the military and naval (river) forces in the West against each 
separate command in turn, at Henry, Donelson, and Island No. 10, and thus 
easily to crush it. The situation would have been reversed had the South seized 

fll8] 



President Lincoln as War Statesman 

that the militia of the District of Columbia had been called 
out for the defense of the capital. 

The next step was to begin raising the necessary troops. 
As soon as the news of the firing on Fort Sumter was 
received the President issued his call for 75,000 militia of 
the several states for three months.^ Both the number 
of men and the period for which they were summoned 
have been pointed out as proof of Lincoln's shortsighted- 
ness. I think his critics in these matters have over- 
looked the conditions. First, the period was all he could 
call them for under the law; second, the number was all 
that could be had, organized, armed and equipped, for 
the time being; and third, the whole thing was a psycho- 
logical experiment, so to speak, to see if the people would 
respond. If the number of men called for had been 
greater and the period longer, the effect might have 
proved staggering or even benumbing instead of, as it 
was, stimulating. 2 In this connection it should not be 
overlooked that it proved impossible to get even the 75,000 
and that only 45,000 were actually mustered in under 
this first call, some of the states having joined the Con- 
federacy after the call was made and some having adopted 
a neutral attitude, while very few furnished their full 
quota. The call on May 3 for 42,034 three years' vol- 
unteers for the regular army and navy'^ and the recom- 
mendation to Congress upon its assembly that 400,000 
men be called out for three years show, I think, a full 



Cairo at the start, which it had ample forces to do in spite of all the efforts of 
the President and General Scott to make it secure. 

1 Official Records, CXXII, 67. 

2 Blaine in Twenty Years in Congress strongly emphasizes this point in speak- 
ing of the difficulty of raising funds for the Union treasury at that time. 

2 Official Records, CXXII, 146. 

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comprehension on Mr. Lincoln's part of the magnitude 
and duration of the coming struggle. 

'Having called out the militia the next question was 
what to do with it. The opinion of most military men 
of the time appears to have been that it was useless and 
to have favored reenlisting for three years all the men 
who would so reenlist and sending the rest back to their 
homes. This opinion has often been assumed to have 
been justified by the results, that is to say by the failure 
of the first operation attempted. The fact is overlooked 
that the result was due to the technical incapacity of the 
military leadership which did not know how to march 
or to fight the command, and that even so the expedition 
nearly succeeded. Yet, although the blow failed, there 
is no question to my mind that striking the blow was pref- 
erable to inaction. Out of Bull Run sprang Phoenix- 
like the impetus and the will to conquer, the awakening to 
the real task and the mighty armies. The same result 
might have been attained possibly by a success but, 
success or failure, the blow had to be struck. Psychologi- 
cally it was as necessary and the result was as electrically 
stimulating to the North as Sumter. 

We cannot here linger over the details of the operations 
nor point out the relation each stroke bore to the central 
thought, but before leaving the subject of the Anaconda 
it will be well to point out with what decision, firmness, 
and relentless silence the coastal part of the plan was 
carried out. Whenever the troops could be spared an- 
other harbor fort was seized or a fort commanding a port 
of entry was captured. The force necessary for each 
expedition was so carefully estimated, the commander 
chosen with such insight into his ability for the particular 
mission, and the team-play between army and navy so 
secured, that but few of them failed. That they were on 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

the whole the best conducted operations of the war 
must be attributed not only to the fine work of the navy 
but very especially to the personal attention given therri 
by the President.^ 

We pass now to the subject of the choice of generals, 
a feature of Lincoln's war administration which has, if 
that be possible, been more criticized than any other. 
It was natural that this should be so at the time wiien 
he was held to blame by his political adversaries for 
every shortcoming of every subordinate in the field and 
it is not surprising that this view should have crept into 
our histories, many of which are not exactly temperate 
in expressing the view that Lincoln was unhappily no 
judge of military ability. To prove this assertion is 
adduced his choice of McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, 
and Meade as commanders and especially that of Halleck 
as his chief of staff later in the war. These critics, both 
past and present, forget that the United States never had 
during the nineteenth century a school in which the 
higher art of war was practically taught. The assumption 
that the cadet school at West Point was a school of 
generalship was as absurd then as it is absurd now. There 
was no knowledge to be had in this country of how to lead 
large bodies of troops in the field or of how to fight them. 

Under these circumstances it was almost pure guess- 
work as to whom to choose and, after McDowell, prob- 
ably the best man in view at the time, Lincoln adopted 
the only gauge possible, that of success in the field. 
McClellan was the first man to win a Union success and 
his reward for it was the command in chief of the army. 
But it soon became apparent that he lacked perspective; 
he could not see the needs of any part of the theater 

1 See C. O. PauUin, "President Lincoln and the Navy," American Historical 
Review, XIV, 284. 

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of war in which he was not personally present. In 
spite of this defect McClellan was not lacking in useful 
points; he inspired confidence in both people and army 
and, at the time, nothing was more needed. After his 
failure as an army leader had become patent Pope was 
brought East and tried. By the criterion of success his 
was the obvious selection, Grant the other victorious 
general in the West being at that time under a cloud. 
When Pope also proved a failure there was no longer any 
success to go by and it was a case of choosing the least 
poor, without doubt McClellan. There was the added 
reason for this that the optimist — and every successful 
war leader has to be such — could always hope that any 
man might learn, at least by his own mistakes. McClel- 
lan had done so in fact; his Antietam campaign showed 
that he had learned many lessons, but unhappily these 
were minor ones, not the important lessons which an 
army commander must master. Mr. Lincoln undoubted- 
ly gave him a fair second trial and, after his, incapacity 
had been proved incurable, properly relieved him. 

Then came the experiment of promoting the ablest 
corps commanders: Burnside, who had also commanded 
independently a successful coastal expedition, Hooker, 
and Meade. None of them proved able commanders; 
all of them proved workable commanders. There is in 
fact never any assurance that the best subordinate in 
the world will make a good independent leader, nor 
that a capable commander of a small force will be effi- 
cient in command of a larger one. 

It may be asked then, why did Lincoln, having found 
a passable commander, not retain him instead of trying a 
new experiment? Lincoln did in fact keep many pass- 
able commanders and used them to the limit of their 
capacity in preference to risking doubtful but promising 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

experiments. But the command of an army imposes a 
tremendous strain; it wears on a man's nerves and 
drains even his courage. Lincoln kept closely in touch 
with his commanders always and especially with the lead- 
er of the Army of the Potomac, and when he saw Burnside 
and Hooker, one after the other, weakening under the 
strain he wisely did not wait until they had reached the 
breaking point. Had he done so he might indeed have 
justified himself in public opinion for their removal, but 
he would also have risked a disaster to the Army of the 
Potomac. 

If we enquire why Lincoln kept Grant so long in the 
West we are halted by the fact that, though Lincoln 
trusted many seeming secrets to many men, in the main 
things he held no man as his counsellor and trusted no 
one with his plans and reasons. We can only guess as to 
whether the general he could not spare because "he 
fights"^ was put where he thought the fighter was most 
needed for the execution of his basic plan or whether he 
wished further to temper him before bringing him East. 

Lastly, in the matter of alleged poor selections, we 
come to the chief of stafT. Halleck is one of those char- 
acters whose reputations have suffered at the hands of 
certain writers of history, such as we are all acquainted 
with, who, pretentious but unequipped, seek to cover up 
their deficiencies of learning by violent and venomous 
invective against minor characters, selected as scape- 
goats, whom no one is likely to rise up to defend. Some 
also who dared not paint too darkly the character or 
deeds of the President have sought to relieve their feel- 
ings, and possibly to convey esoterically their meaning, 
by accusing Halleck of blunders or of unwarrantable 
interference, accusations which, whether just or unjust, 

1 A. K. McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Tirne (Phila., 1892), 180. 

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should have been made against the Secretary of War 
or against the President himself. To blame Halleck was, 
in addition, a conveniently indirect method of casting 
covert reproaches at the President for keeping so worth- 
less an individual about him as adviser. 

Mr. Lincoln has left us no direct praise of General Hal- 
leck but his retaining him in an advisory capacity through- 
out the latter part of the war is perhaps the best compli- 
ment, and the best evidence of his appreciation of his 
utility, that he could have given. General Sherman, 
who did not flatter anyone merely because he was writing 
to him, remarked in a letter thanking Halleck for his 
opinion on some matters: "I value your opinion on mat- 
ters of importance above those of any other, because I 
know you to be frank, honest, and learned in the great 
principles of history. Both Grant and I are deficient in 
these and are mere actors in a grand drama, the end of 
which we do not see."^ 

Grant was always reserved towards Halleck for their 
personal relations had been unfortunate, but his corre- 
spondence shows that he felt towards him the highest 
deference and respect. 

The portrayal of Halleck in the usual Civil War critique 
is thus far out of the perspective. It is indeed possible 
to present him as a pathetic figure, deplorably lacking in 
military knowledge, but so it is all the rest of the gen- 
erals, including Grant and Lee, in the light of present- 
day military science. The village sage may appear a 
sorry impostor transplanted to academic circles, but that 
does not prevent his being the village sage. No account 
of the Civil War generals is a true one which does not 
ascribe to Halleck a foremost place in the matter of the 
military erudition and science of the day such as it was. 

1 Official Records, LXXIX, 203. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

He furnished the President on the technical side precisely 
the elements he required and was probably the best man 
for the purpose who could have been found. Nor, in the 
matter of practical achievement was he behind; in the 
year 1862 virtually every victory gained by the North, 
from Henry and Donelson to Antietam, had been won 
by his subordinates acting under his direct orders. 

As the war progressed we find Lincoln studying works 
on military art, brooding over maps, and applying his 
mind to the understanding of the details of the operations 
under his own direction as well as of those of other wars. 
Probably no army officer during the Civil War labored 
with such diligence to master military theory as well as 
the practical details of campaigning as did Lincoln, and 
with him it was never a matter of swallowing whole the 
opinions or formulae of others: he sought principles and 
how to apply them to the particular case. 

It might seem at first sight that the strategist of the 
war had nought to do with tactics. Perhaps in handling 
an army composed of highly trained officers such might 
be the case. But with a raw, untrained, volunteer army, 
such as was ours, its units commanded by officers ignorant 
for the most part of the higher elements of their pro- 
fession, it became essential for the President to be certain 
of his own knowledge, how the troops ought to be dis- 
posed, what might fairly be expected of them in the matter 
of accomplishment, and what was the worst that might 
happen to them in case of a disaster. Only by thus 
intimately understanding each situation could he act 
intelligently when every commander from Yorktown 
to St. Louis was shrieking that he was outnumbered and 
overwhelmed and demanding reenforcements. 

As early as October 24, 1861 we find him with complete 
grasp of the local peculiarities and easy mastery of the 

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tactical principles involved advising the commander of 
the Department of the West how to dispose his troops 
and pointing out what was tactically impossible of ac- 
complishment.^ From Mr. Lincoln's correspondence 
with his generals a very interesting and thoroughly up- 
to-date book of tactical principles might be compiled; 
and it would also be a very witty one, for, with his orig- 
inality of expression he put his suggestions into language 
as picturesque as it was terse and vigorous: for example 
his advice to Hooker, "I would not take any risk of being 
entangled upon the river, like an ox jumped half over a 
fence and liable to be torn by dogs front and rear without 
a fair chance to gore one way or kick the other." And 
his later pointing out, "If the head of Lee's army is at 
Martinsburg and the tail of it on the plank road between 
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be 
very slim somewhere. Could you not break him?"^ 
Lincoln saw the tactical fault of Lee and the tactical 
opportunity it afforded, but his perception proved too far 
beyond that of Hooker for him to be able to see it, even 
when pointed out. 

Some of his tactical ideas were not only ahead of his 
generals but in advance of his time, as instance his letter 
to Buell in which he says, "We have the greater numbers 
and the enemy has the greater facility of concentrating 
forces upon points of collision; that we must fail unless 
we can find some way of making our advantage an over- 
match for his; and that this can only be done by menacing 
him with superior forces at different points at the same 
time, so that we can safely attack one or both if he makes 
no change; and if he weakens one to strengthen the other, 
forbear to attack the strengthened one, but seize and hold 



1 Complete Works, II, 86. 

2 June 5 and 14, ibid., 344, 352. 



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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

the weakened one, gaining so much."^ This conception 
did not accord with the formulae which had been com- 
piled from the peculiar experiences of lesser forces in the 
European theater in former times. Hence it was long 
jeered at by the pedants. But I do not think the Euro- 
pean general staffs of today could put into clearer language 
the guiding tactical principle by which both the contest- 
ants have been acting in the present war and by which 
Mr. Lincoln and his subordinates had to act if they were 
to win. 

In the matter of orders there is a popular tradition to 
the effect that success in military matters demands that 
the superior shall do all the thinking and that subordinates 
shall execute precisely what they are told and nothing 
more. In the lesser operations of former times, when the 
commander of relatively small forces could keep in touch 
with and direct the marching and fighting of all his 
units, and when subordinate commanders were not well 
trained and could not be Irusled, such a policy could be 
and was successfully carried out. When Napoleon tried 
to conduct operations by that method with the larger 
forces and in the larger theater of 1812 and 1813, he 
speedily came to grief. Lincoln, even in the second year 
of the war, commanded more men than Napoleon ever 
commanded, and no small share of his success must be 
attributed to his having grappled with and correctly 
solved the problem of how to deal with the mighty forces 
under his orders. 

I refer to the principle of substituting missions for 
specific directions. This amounts to assigning a sub- 
ordinate his task but leaving him independent initiative 

1 Jan. 13, 1862, OJficial Records, VII, 928. A further development of this idea 
in connection with the advantages and disadvantages of the offensive and de- 
fensive respectively, and the relative numbers required for each, will be found 
in his letter to Halleck of Sept. 19, 1863, in id., XLIX, 207. 

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to think out his problem and to solve it in his own way 
and, so far as practicable, in his own time. Such orders 
are now termed "directives" or "letters of instruction." 
Mr. Lincoln did not so term them but the greater part 
of his military letters and telegrams fall distinctly into 
this category. He usually stated at the end of such 
messages "this is not an order" to convey unmistakably 
the idea that he was not conveying a rigid, formal order 
as orders were understood at that time. Moltke also, 
and quite independently of Lincoln, perceived the need 
of this method of procedure in handling the larger forces 
of modern times and so trained the Prussian army, 
especially during the five years following our Civil War, 
that he was able in 1870 to conduct the German opera- 
tions by methods identical with those Lincoln had em- 
ployed. Today, in any well-trained army, this principle 
of assigning missions, instead of prescribing measures, 
extends all the way down the hierarchy. 

Mr. Lincoln's orders, and letters ending in "this is not 
an order," have been made the butt of no end of ridicule 
by pettifogged minds who sought to compare them un- 
favorably with those of Napoleon without realizing that 
he had solved the secret of big business as applied to war 
precisely where Napoleon had failed. These criticisms 
are just the sort one would expect from a country store- 
keeper unable to grasp the methods of the head of a 
department store and animadverting against him be- 
cause he did not conduct his larger business like a country 
store. Mr. Lincoln was simply dealing with big business 
in a big way. His methods were entirely appropriate 
and he deserves the distinction of being the first to em- 
ploy them successfully. Nor does the fact that he did, 
upon occasion, give precise orders, especially when dealing 
with the forces about and covering Washington, constitute 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

any contradiction to this statement. In any operations, 
however large, occasions will always arise when the central 
directing power must deny the initiative of subordinates, 
give explicit directions and demand implicit obedience. 
Mr. Lincoln correctly perceived those occasions and 
applied the proper stimulus when it was needed. 

His correspondence with the generals was, however, 
by no means confined to movements ordered or suggested. 
His letters contain timely information, suggestions as 
to how to meet special difficulties of the situation, bits 
of personal counsel. Where friction is evident they seek 
to oil the machinery by smoothing things over or patching 
up misunderstandings. They nearly always give the 
impression or contain the direct statement that the 
government is doing and will do all in its power to aid the 
recipient in performing his task. Out of the multitude 
of his collected letters only a small percentage show the 
use of the lash and then only as a last sharp stimulus 
after all other means had failed. Efforts to spur on the 
laggard or startle the comatose into activity by warnings 
of imminent danger, to hearten the discouraged by glow- 
ing pictures of possible success, to give assurance to the 
overcautious by pointing out the weaknesses of his op- 
ponent, to arouse ambition, confidence, and energy in 
each, are far more frequent. As to praise, he was almost 
pathetically eager to give it and did give it, quickly and 
in full measure, for the slightest success or even genuine 
endeavor. 

In estimating the influence of Lincoln on his generals 
it is impossible to consider separately his correspondence 
and his personal intercourse with them. He was not 
one of those who, placed in high position, shrink from 
personal contact and seek to hide behind the typewriter 
or the pen. He both welcomed and returned the visits 

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of his generals and made frequent trips to both larger and 
smaller headquarters when not beyond ready reach from 
the capital. Nor were these visits mere flying ones; 
often he remained several days with some general in 
the field. The result was that, with the exception of 
his political opponent for the presidency in 1864, I know 
of no general officer who did not look up to him with 
reliance and regard. All felt that, no matter what 
happened, if they could only see the President and ex- 
plain things to him, all would be right. And with per- 
sonal regard went, hand in hand, respect and esteem; 
we do not find these men wittingly among Lincoln's 
detractors. 

As with the generals, so with the officers and men. He 
did not hold himself aloof, but visited camps, inspected 
formations, issued timely proclamations, and held easy 
intercourse with all. No better proof of the confidence 
he inspired in his armies could be desired than the fact 
that before the election of 1864 his party leaders in the 
doubtful states wanted men furloughed home from the 
army, sure that these men would vote and win votes for 
Lincoln; nor was this confidence misplaced. Many a 
European monarch and minister would give much for the 
secrets of Lincoln's success in dealing with the problem of 
crowd psychology as applied to armies. 

To turn to Mr. Lincoln's handling of one of his more 
specialized problems, that of organization, we find a 
seeming tendency towards multiplication of separate 
commands, culminating in 1862, followed by a gradual 
unifying of commands until, in 1864, General Grant was 
assigned to command the whole. These changes have 
been seized upon to prove various theses: those who look 
for timid vacillation on the part of Lincoln find no excuse 
for the multiplying and attribute the unifying to a re- 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

sponse to the growing demands of public opinion; those 
who follow the Comte de Paris in seeing in Lincoln the 
blundering egotist who "ended in believing himself 
capable of directing military operations"^ explain the 
multiplying by a thirst for exercising command and the 
unifying by Lincoln's becoming "conscious of his own 
incompetency"^ and gradually relinquishing control. 

If we consider each change in organization, however, 
and the reasons for it, in the light of the situation as it 
appeared at the time, we shall not find much open logically 
to serious objection. Take for instance the reorganiza- 
tion upon the removal of the Army of the Potomac 
to the Yorktown peninsula in 1862. Washington had 
to be covered, Pennsylvania and western Maryland 
had to be covered, West Virginia had to be protected, 
and it was desirable to threaten an advance via Fred- 
ericksburg. There were two ways of accomplishing 
this: first, by a central army thrust well forward, which 
was attempted afterwards under Pope; second, by 
a cordon of troops covering strategic points. For the 
time being there were not enough troops for the central 
army so the cordon system was a last resort. If we 
examine the relative sizes of the various corps and di- 
visions of observation, and their distribution to localities, 
we find little room for disagreement and no room for 
condemnation, considering the missions assigned the 
various bodies. Fewer troops might have sufficed to 
cover West Virginia but Fremont's command was des- 
tined to occupy East Tennessee also. 

The organization into Mountain Department (West 
Virginia), and Departments of the Shenandoah and Rap- 



1 Louis Philippe Albert d'Orlcans, Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War 
in America (Phiia., 1875-88), I, 573. 
^ Id., 11, 215. 

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pahannock (west and east respectively of the Blue Ridge, 
in northern Virginia) was a, perfectly natural one, follow- 
ing the distribution of troops.^ Both distribution and 
organization received substantially the approval of Gen- 
eral Scott when Lincoln went to consult him about the 
matter in June, 1862. The fact that Jackson was able 
to break through the cordon and afterwards to make 
good his escape has been assumed by some writers to 
be proof of the faults of organization and orders by the 
President; such a test is far from conclusive. The object 
of the dispositions was to prevent the capture or even the 
serious threatening of Washington, or the invasion of 
Union territory. This was accomplished and, with the 
removal of the main army under McClellan to Fort 
Monroe, it is difficult to see how it could have been more 
effectively accomplished with the same number and qual- 
ity of troops. In the course of the operations other objec- 
tives were set the troops, namely the cutting ofT and de- 
struction of Jackson's command. No one at the time 
realized Jackson's object any better than Lincoln^ and 
if, in spite of that insight, he chose to attempt Jackson's 
capture, he was only anticipating Grant's similar de- 
cision two years later. ^ That the attempt failed is not 
justly to be attributed to faults of either plan or orders. 



1 Official Records, XVIII, 43; amended bj^ General Order No. 62 on June 8, 
1862, id., XV, 541. 

2 Lincoln wrote to Fremont on June 15, 1862: "I think Jackson's game — 
his assigned work — now is to magnify the accounts of his numbers and reports 
of his movements, and thus by constant alarms keep three or four times as 
many of our troops away from Richmond as his own force amounts to. Thus he 
helps his friends at Richmond three or four times as much as if he were there." 
Ibid., 661. 

5 Grant wrote from City Point on July 9, 1864: "I should like to have a 
large force here; but if the rebel force now north can be captured or destroyed 
I would willingly postpone aggressive operations to destroy them, and could 
send in addition to the Nineteenth Corps the balance of the Sixth Corps." 
Id., LXXXn, 92. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

but to faulty leadership of the troops; even so it was 
worth the trying. 

In considering the appropriateness of the changes in 
organization we should not neglect the factor of the ability 
of the generals available for assignment. As the com- 
manders waxed in capacity and efficiency it became 
profitable to increase tlicir responsibilities to a point 
which it would not have been profitable to do earlier in 
the war. But in saying this there is no intention of 
implying that Mr. Lincoln did not himself learn anything 
about organization during its course. The whole center 
of gravity of military operations inevitably hinges on the 
organization and the location and resulting viewpoint 
of the commander and his staff. Mr. Lincoln became 
more keenly appreciative of this fact with his widening 
experience and made skilful use of his knowledge. 

Upon Grant's appoinlmcnL as lieutenant-general in 
March, 1864, Lincoln and Grant met for the first time. 
There is a more or less common supposition that from that 
date Grant took over, so to speak, the conduct of the 
war and that the President sat back and watched him, 
without really knowing or understanding what was being 
done. This impression is given, more or less unintentional- 
ly I believe, in Grant's final report of the war operations^ 
and is reenforced by the more remote and hazy views in 
his memoirs, hi these Grant says that the President 
told him that "all he wanted or had ever wanted was some- 
one who would take the responsibility and act, and call 
on him for all the assistance needed. * * * [Stanton] and 
General Halleck both cautioned me against giving the 
President my plans of campaign. * * * I did not com- 



' Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (New York, 1885-86), Appendix, 
555-56. 

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municate my plans to the President, nor did I to the Sec- 
retary of War or to General Halleck."^ 

This impression is strengthened by the fact that Nicolay 
and Hay, in their rather precise account of Grant's visit 
to Washington, make no mention of any private inter- 
view between the President and Grant and quite unneces- 
sarily deny that Mr. Lincoln said one word to him "as 
to what route to Richmond should be chosen. "^ 

Let us examine the other evidence on this point. 

1. Grant asserts in his Memoirs that the President did 
"submit" to him "a plan of campaign of his own." His 
account of the interview further does not give the im- 
pression that it is the one described by Nicolay and Hay 
and at which they were present. 

2. Grant, presumably, had numerous interviews with 
Halleck who probably understood the President's ideas 
and wishes better than anyone else. 

3. Before Grant came to Washington he had in mind a 
campaign of penetration from the rear via Suffolk- 
Raleigh.^ What he did was to carry out the plan Lincoln 
had been trying to put through since the spring of 1862. 

4. In his orders to Meade for the campaign he employed 
a paraphrase of Lincoln's orders of the year before to 
Hooker.* 

5. As to the President's not knowing Grant's plan, 

1 Id., II, 122-23. 

2 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VIII, 340-43. 

3 Official Records, LVIII, 41; id., LX, 394. See also Willey Howell, "Lieut. 
General Grant's Campaign of 1864," in Military Historian and Economist, I, 
115. 

* Lincoln wrote to Hooker, June 10, 1863: "I think Lee's army, not Rich- 
mond, is your true objective point. If he comes toward the upper Potomac, 
follow on his flank and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he length- 
ens his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret 
him and fret him." Complete Works, II, 345. 

Grant's instructions to Meade were: "Lee's army will be your objective 
point. 'Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also." Official Records, LX, 828. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

Lincoln said in an address on May 9, 1864:^ "I think, 
without knowing the particulars of the plans of General 
Grant, that what has been accomplished is of more im- 
portance than at first appears. I believe, I know — and 
am especially grateful to know — that General Grant has 
not been jostled in his purposes, that he has made all 
his points, and today he is on his line as he purposed before 
he moved his armies." 

No scholar who has become familiar with the pains- 
taking care with which Lincoln chose his words can doubt 
the meaning of that statement. 

6. In other respects Grant's plans reflected the views of 
Lincoln. Grant called for simultaneous movement on 
all fronts; so had the President's War Order No. 1, two 
years before. ^ Grant called for destroying the enemy's 
war resources — another name for the Anaconda. Grant's 
idea was to hammer continuously, "attrition" ; so had been 
Lincoln's, and it was perhaps because he had found in 
Grant the best executor of that idea that he gave him the 
over-command of all the armies. 

In weighing this evidence we have to consider that 
Grant's memory was often at fault in the statements in 
his Memoirs, and that he had a habit of, so to speak, 
dramatizing his recollections by inserting quite imaginary 
and sometimes impossible conversations.^ We observe 



' Complete Works, II, 520. 

■ Grant's statement in his ofTicial report that before he came to Washington 
"the armies in the East and in the West had acted independently and without 
concert, Hke a balky team," seemingly implied a denial of any effort at coordi- 
nation prior to his arrival on the scene. He must have forgotten in so writing 
that orders do not necessarily create coordination; no balkier team than Grant's 
three armies in Virginia, with Butler bottling himself in Bermuda Hundred 
and Sigel and Hunter now chasing and again being chased up and down the 
Shenandoah, is to be found in the Civil War. 

' In saying this there is no wish to imply on Grant's part any conscious intent 
to deceive the reader. It was simply the common tendency of human nature to 

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also that what we may call Grant's declaration of inde- 
pendence, at this point in his Memiors, is not borne out 
in other parts. Speaking of a later occasion on which 
he had shown Lincoln a message he says, "Mr. Lincoln, 
supposing I was asking for instructions, said," etc., and 
a little later he mentions, "I do not remember what the 
instructions were the President gave me, but I know," 
etc.^ These passages, brief as they are, do not suggest 
a picture of the President as a dumb, semi-informed ob- 
server of events. Further, while Grant became quite 
willing to overemphasize his own value to Lincoln, and 
the part he had played, no other might encroach. He 
denies that Stanton was necessary to Lincoln to prevent 
his being imposed upon and adds: "Mr. Lincoln did not 
require a guardian to aid him in the fulfilment of a public 
trust. "2 This last represents, I believe. Grant's real 
attitude which was at bottom one of thorough loyalty 
to Lincoln. 

As regards the statement made by Nicolay and Hay, 
those gentlemen may have had a motive in the effort to 
controvert the statements of General Taylor who had 
blamed Lincoln for the heavy losses incurred by Grant 
in the Wilderness campaign.^ 

It seems clear then that Lincoln knew, in general terms, 
and approved Grant's plans. Whether Grant, conscious- 
ly or unconsciously, shaped his plans to meet Lincoln's 
views, or quite independently came to that way of think- 
ing, the evidence is perhaps insufficient for determining." 



tell a good story, in doing which, long after the event, anyone is liable to mag- 
nify his own part and the credit due him. 

1 Grant's Memoirs, II, 532-33. 

2 Ibid., 537. 

3 Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, VIII, note 1, 343. 

* Capt. Willey Howell who has devoted much study to Grant's plan of 
campaign is of the opinion that, while Grant was uninfluenced by anyone in his 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

It was like Lincoln to give Grant a wide latitude; and it 
was characteristic of the soldierly Grant to carry out 
loyally throughout the views of his superior, so that seeds 
of friction did not exist. 

Whatever the influence of Lincoln upon Grant's plans 
prior to the initiation of the campaign of 1864, there is no 
doubt that he left the conduct of the main eastern army, 
as well as the specific instructions to be given Sherman and 
others, entirely to Grant. But he did not for a moment 
relax his vigilance in following every move and after 
Grant had reached City Point Lincoln made frequent 
visits to his headquarters. Mow closely he remained in 
touch with the military requirements of the situation may 
be gathered from his telegram to Grant of July 20, 1864: 
"Yours of yesterday, about a call for 300,000, is received. 
I suppose you had not seen the call for 500,000, made 
the day before, and which, I suppose, covers the case. 
Always glad to have your suggestions."' 

Yet, though Grant took a vast amount of work off his 
hands, and freed him from many burdens, the correspond- 
ence, slight as it is, suffices to show that Lincoln held the 
military reins during the last nine months of the war 
quite as firmly as ever in his own hands. 

Lincoln's influence on our foreign relations during the 
war has been well brought out in the main by Nicolay 
and Hay. As to his sense of relative values, his firmness 
on essentials — such as the nonrecognition of the Con- 
federacy by Great Britain and France — and the appro- 
priateness and timeliness of his dealings with foreign 
governments there can be little dispute. How closely 



conduct of the war west of the Alleghanies, in 1864-65 he shaped his plans of 
campaign in the Virginia theater to meet the views of either Halleck or Lincoln. 
See Mil. Hist. & Econ., I, 278. 
» Complete Works, II, 551. 

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Wisconsin Historical Society 

he watched the situtation abroad and sought to coordinate 
the campaigns and the diplomatic situation is suggested 
by his efforts to get Rosecrans to do something in De- 
cember, 1862, before the meeting of the British Parlia- 
ment, so that all the lost ground might be recovered by 
that time to strengthen the hands of the government in 
its diplomacy.^ 

Nor, in watching Europe, did he neglect to keep an 
eye out to the southward. In August, 1863 he wrote 
to Grant at Vicksburg: "In view of recent events in 
Mexico, I am greatly impressed with the importance of 
reestablishing the national authority in Western Texas 
as soon as possible. "^ Grant, however, was found pre- 
occupied with his more immediate surroundings, so 
Lincoln turned to Banks and fmally sent him to re- 
establish the Union authority on the Rio Grande at 
Brownsville.^ Naturally but few references to the inter- 
relations of military operations and diplomacy are to 
be found in the official correspondence and the extent 
of this coordination has not yet been brought to light. 
It would make a good topic for a history seminar. 

Lincoln's handling of the other departments of the 
government, especially the Treasury, which had to furnish 
the sinews of war, his dealings with Congress, his influence 
on public opinion, are all essential parts of his conduct 
of the war, and the military campaigns, as well as the 
naval operations, will only be viewed in their correct 
perspective when considered in their relation to the whole. 
Of all the battles of the war Antietam was perhaps the 
most important in its political, diplomatic, and popular 

1 Halleck to Rosecrans, Dec. 5, 1862, Official Records, XXX, 123. 

^ Id., XXXVIII, 584. 

3 Seward's letter of instructions to Banks is of especial interest at the present 
time. Nov. 23, 1863, id., XLI, 815. See also on this, Halleck to Grant, Jan. 8, 
1864, id., LVIII, 41. 

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President Lincoln as War Statesman 

significance; but it was the Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion which gave it that significance, just as it was the call 
to arms of the militia which gave its meaning to the fall 
of Sumter. The chief consequence of Gettysburg was, 
not the clearance of the enemy from Pennsylvania, but 
that it made it possible to put into effect the Draft Act. 

Amid all this handling of weighty questions we find the 
President still able to give time to lesser ones, to send an 
appropriate and steadying reply to the resolutions of a 
meeting of disgruntled New York citizens in Albany; to 
indite a long letter of thanks and assurance in answer to 
an address from an appreciative body of English work- 
ingmen in Manchester;^ to test powders; to experiment 
firing with a rifle; to advise concerning the designs of 
ships; to consider innumerable private cases and griev- 
ances; and, in general, to meet anyone and everyone who 
cared to see him. With a rare detachment and unaffected 
simplicity he assumed the blame for all failures and short- 
comings of his subordinates, while for all successes he 
readily yielded the credit to others. Is it any wonder 
that he was able to inspire the efforts of a vast, inert 
heterogeneous people, to organize great armies and fleets, 
and so to direct them as to destroy slavery and reestablish 
a popular Union government in the land? 

To some my estimate of Lincoln as war statesman may 
seem that of a purblind enthusiast, who has succumbed 
to the inevitable temptation to laud to heroship the 
central figure of his research, and to paint in only the 
high lights of merit and success, leaving out all shadows. 
I can only answer that, just as the accusation of his 
contemporary political detractors — that he was but a 
common politician who owed his reputation to the group 

1 Frank Moore, Rebellion Record; a diary of American events, etc. (New York, 
1864), VII, 298, VI, 420. 

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of able statesmen by whom he was surrounded — has 
fallen away, destroyed by cumulative evidence, so will it 
be in matters military. The companion idea that in 
military matters Lincoln was but a bungler, surrounded 
by able generals whom he failed to appreciate or to sup- 
port, is still rampant; by the nature of things views in this 
field are readjusted more slowly. But I am confident that 
when all the evidence has been gathered and weighed, the 
entire picture filled in and all the lights and shadows 
balanced, we shall see the figure of Abraham Lincoln 
stand out even more colossal upon the dim perspective. 



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